What's Cool in Science This Week?

Started by bayonetbrant, January 09, 2017, 11:08:31 AM

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OJsDad

'Here at NASA we all pee the same color.'  Al Harrison from the movie Hidden Figures.

OJsDad

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/01/14/thanks-to-ai-computers-can-now-see-your-health-problems.html

QuoteThanks to AI, computers can now see your health problems

By Megan Molteni Published January 14, 2017

Patient Number Two was born to first-time parents, late 20s, white. The pregnancy was normal and the birth uncomplicated. But after a few months, it became clear something was wrong. The child had ear infection after ear infection and trouble breathing at night. He was small for his age, and by his fifth birthday, still hadn’t spoken. He started having seizures. Brain MRIs, molecular analyses, basic genetic testing, scores of doctors; nothing turned up answers. With no further options, in 2015 his family decided to sequence their exomes—the portion of the genome that codes for proteins—to see if he had inherited a genetic disorder from his parents. A single variant showed up: ARID1B.

The mutation suggested he had a disease called Coffin-Siris syndrome. But Patient Number Two didn’t have that disease’s typical symptoms, like sparse scalp hair and incomplete pinky fingers. So, doctors, including Karen Gripp, who met with Two’s family to discuss the exome results, hadn’t really considered it. Gripp was doubly surprised when she uploaded a photo of Two’s face to Face2Gene. The app, developed by the same programmers who taught Facebook to find your face in your friend’s photos, conducted millions of tiny calculations in rapid succession—how much slant in the eye? How narrow is that eyelid fissure? How low are the ears? Quantified, computed, and ranked to suggest the most probable syndromes associated with the facial phenotype. There’s even a heat map overlay on the photo that shows which the features are the most indicative match.

“In hindsight it was all clear to me,” says Gripp, who is chief of the Division of Medical Genetics at A.I. duPont Hospital for Children in Delaware, and had been seeing the patient for years. “But it hadn’t been clear to anyone before.” What had taken Patient Number Two’s doctors 16 years to find took Face2Gene just a few minutes.

Face2Gene takes advantage of the fact that so many genetic conditions have a tell-tale “face”—a unique constellation of features that can provide clues to a potential diagnosis. It is just one of several new technologies taking advantage of how quickly modern computers can analyze, sort, and find patterns across huge reams of data. They are built in fields of artificial intelligence known as deep learning and neural nets—among the most promising to deliver AI’s 50-year old promise to revolutionize medicine by recognizing and diagnosing disease.

Genetic syndromes aren’t the only diagnoses that could get help from machine learning. The RightEye GeoPref Autism Test can identify the early stages of autism in infants as young as 12 months—the crucial stages where early intervention can make a big difference. Unveiled January 2 at CES in Las Vegas, the technology uses infrared sensors test the child’s eye movement as they watch a split-screen video: one side fills with people and faces, the other with moving geometric shapes. Children at that age should be much more attracted to faces than abstract objects, so the amount of time they look at each screen can indicate where on the autism spectrum a child might fall.

In validation studies done by the test’s inventor, UC San Diego researcher Karen Pierce,1 the test correctly predicted autism spectrum disorder 86 percent of the time in more than 400 toddlers. That said, it’s still pretty new, and hasn’t yet been approved by the FDA as a diagnostic tool. “In terms of machine learning, it’s the simplest test we have,” says RightEye’s Chief Science Officer Melissa Hunfalvay. “But before this, it was just physician or parent observations that might lead to a diagnosis. And the problem with that is it hasn’t been quantifiable.”

A similar tool could help with early detection of America’s sixth leading cause of death: Alzheimer’s disease. Often, doctors don’t recognize physical symptoms in time to try any of the disease’s few existing interventions. But machine learning hears what doctor’s can’t: Signs of cognitive impairment in speech. This is how Toronto-based Winterlight Labs is developing a tool to pick out hints of dementia in its very early stages. Co-founder Frank Rudzicz calls these clues “jitters,” and “shimmers:” high frequency wavelets only computers, not humans, can hear.

Winterlight’s tool is way more sensitive than the pencil and paper-based tests doctor’s currently use to assess Alzheimer’s. Besides being crude, data-wise, those tests can’t be taken more than once every six months. Rudzicz’s tool can be used multiple times a week, which lets it track good days, bad days, and measure a patient’s cognitive functions over time. The product is still in beta, but is currently being piloted by medical professionals in Canada, the US, and France.

If this all feels a little scarily sci-fi to you, it’s useful to remember that doctors have been trusting computers with your diagnoses for a long time. That’s because machines are much more sensitive at both detecting and analyzing the many subtle indications that our bodies are misbehaving. For instance, without computers, Patient Number Two would never have been able to compare his exome to thousands of others, and find the genetic mutation marking him with Coffin-Siris syndrome.

But none of this makes doctors obsolete. Even Face2Gene—which, according to its inventors, can diagnose up to half of the 8,000 known genetic syndromes using facial patterns gleaned from the hundreds of thousands of images in its database—needs a doctor (like Karen Gripp) with enough experience to verify the results. In that way, machines are an extension of what medicine has always been: A science that grows more powerful with every new data point.

1UPDATE 3:00 pm Eastern 1/9/17 This story has been updated to correct Dr. Pierce’s relationship to RightEye; she is the author of the GeoPref Autism Test, which was licensed and further developed for commercialization by RightEye. An earlier version of this story incorrectly cited Dr. Pierce as RightEye’s inventor
'Here at NASA we all pee the same color.'  Al Harrison from the movie Hidden Figures.

bayonetbrant

The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

bayonetbrant

The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

Emeraldlis

Quote from: bayonetbrant on January 15, 2017, 10:34:40 AM
architecture in Antarctica

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38574003?SThisFB

Woah......there is some seriously cool architecture going on in Antarctica  :o I liked the design inside the Halley vi building , I think it's genius that they thought to include as much sensory stimulation that Antarctica lacks , like putting bright red and blue in the sleeping areas , and the windows in the sleeping areas to let in light .....I think you'd get cabin fever without that natural light streaming in ! Plus you need it to naturally wake up and stimulate all of those different wake/sleep hormones , so I like how they've thought about that , the welfare of the people in the buildings , not just the building itself  :) I loved the idea of them taking into consideration the sense of smell , by including a staircase made from Lebanese cedar wood , I bet that just smells wonderful to wake up to . I've also never thought of that before , what it must be like to have very little rainfall on that continent......being British , that sounds traumatic !!!!!! :D no need for a brolly.... :wow: hahahahaha  ;D

The sleek design of that first building looks very cool , wow , I'd love to visit that . It's a shame it's not open to the public , but then again , where would they stay if they went ? They'd have to build a hotel , I'm surprised that's not been done , there must be some bored billionaire businessman out there who wouldn't mind a venture like that . Hell, if Richard Branson can fund space Tourism.....any thing is possible !!!!

Even the photography in that article is stunning , the green sky over one of the buildings is stunning . It looks like the southern lights , although the article makes no mention of it being that . But I can't think of any other reason the sky would be that colour  ???

I also wonder what the study on isolation turned up ? It can't be good , I just hope their findings produce newer coping mechanisms to help anyone who's had to deal with that in their life .

I really enjoyed looking at and reading that article , that was a cool find , thanks for posting :)
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm " winston Churchill 😉
"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune , or to take arms against a sea of trouble ,and by opposing end them "  hamlet  🎭

A bad hobbit is hard to break - Staggerwing
Booooo!!!!! Repeat !!!!!!!   - MetalDog

MetalDog

And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

Sir Slash

Looking for ISIS? It would be a great place to hide.
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

Emeraldlis

Quote from: MetalDog on January 18, 2017, 09:04:08 PM
Russian space agency and NASA teaming up on possible mission to Venus:


http://www.space.com/35333-russia-nasa-venus-mission-venera-d.html

Great article MD  O0 flying through "Venusian skies " sounds like a seriously cool thing to do  8) it's a shame how long it always takes to plan these missions and execute them , although I doubt astronauts would take that same view , lol , I guess they'd want it to be as airtight as possible . It's just a pain waiting half a life time to find out if a planet has anything that could sustain any form of life ! I personally think that they will never find life in outer space , on other planets , nothing like we have on earth . Although fantasy movies about aliens and other life forms on other plants are really cool , wish that could be true in real life , lol  :)

It's great to learn a little bit more about Venus in that article , the quiz was really good , and I now know that the surface would crush the living day lights out of us , AND the air is full of sulphuric acid ....so , no good for our lungs then !!!!!! I hope Russia and nasa are still co-operating by the time that mission launches ...with the way things are going , who knows  ??? Really enjoyable read though , great find MD  :)
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm " winston Churchill 😉
"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune , or to take arms against a sea of trouble ,and by opposing end them "  hamlet  🎭

A bad hobbit is hard to break - Staggerwing
Booooo!!!!! Repeat !!!!!!!   - MetalDog

MetalDog

Thank you O0  I love reading about space, but I'm not a big science fiction fan.  Go figure.  However, I happen to think that there's life in a lot of places in the universe.  The problems are time and distance.  That's why I believe that man will need to colonize our own solar system first before we can get anywhere else.
And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

MetalDog

And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

Sir Slash

"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

Emeraldlis

Quote from: MetalDog on January 19, 2017, 06:28:06 PM
Thank you O0  I love reading about space, but I'm not a big science fiction fan.  Go figure.  However, I happen to think that there's life in a lot of places in the universe.  The problems are time and distance.  That's why I believe that man will need to colonize our own solar system first before we can get anywhere else.

Your welcome MD :)  that's an intresting opinion you have MD , and you're  certainly not alone in believing in maybe life existing out there ....I say maybe , only because it hasn't been proven yet , not because I'm disrespecting your opinion :) I agree time and distance stop us from venturing too far outside our solar system , and therefore it's difficult to say what's out there for sure  ??? But just sticking with what we do know , our own solar system .....what I think , and it's just my own opinion , not trying to put that on you , just expressing what I see . Everything about the earth is perfect for human life , we need water , the earth is 70% water , we need oxygen to breathe and we omit carbon dioxide as we exhale , the atmosphere is a perfect mix of gases for us to breathe , and the carbon dioxide is recycled naturally by the planet ...trees .and such . We would have no seasons on earth if the world didn't have the perfect tilt and an axis , we don't just have human life , all,of this supports animal life as well .....not to mention the sheer diversity of flora and fauna :) 

I'm not telling you anything new here , but to my mind , I think .....if we can't even find single cell life forms on other planets in our solar system , the simplest form of life ......and even a cell is far from simple , and yet all those planets are close to earth , surely if life was to be found , it should be close to us ? If it was going to spread , surely it should spread from us first ?

And then there's the problem of, life on any planet would have to be compatible with the planet , just like humans are compatible with earth :)

Don't get me wrong , I would LOVE to see life on other planets because otherwise those planets are kind of a waste !!! Why are those planets there , I don't have the answer , I think they are big life questions ....but I think it's great to ponder those things :) just wanted to share my opinion , I love discussions like this , and thought your opinion was great and intresting :)  Thanks MD  O0
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm " winston Churchill 😉
"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune , or to take arms against a sea of trouble ,and by opposing end them "  hamlet  🎭

A bad hobbit is hard to break - Staggerwing
Booooo!!!!! Repeat !!!!!!!   - MetalDog

MetalDog

Thanks, E.  I have no basis in my belief other than sheer numbers.  Billions of Galaxies?  There HAS to be life out there.  Whether it looks like us or not, I don't know.  Might be.  Might not.  But the Mars rover just found mud remains and where there's mud remains, there was water and...you know the rest.

I've stated this on site before, I truly believe in order to survive, man is going to have to colonize the solar system.  Whether it's on space stations orbiting planets, in habitats on moons or planets or some combination.  But it needs to happen.  The human race is going to suck the planet Earth dry if we don't find alternate ways to live in harmony with the environment.  And part of that is going to be learning to get resources off planet.  At least mineral ones to begin with.
And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

Pete Dero

Quote from: MetalDog on January 22, 2017, 12:58:06 AM
Thanks, E.  I have no basis in my belief other than sheer numbers.  Billions of Galaxies?  There HAS to be life out there.  Whether it looks like us or not, I don't know.  Might be.  Might not.  But the Mars rover just found mud remains and where there's mud remains, there was water and...you know the rest.

I've stated this on site before, I truly believe in order to survive, man is going to have to colonize the solar system.  Whether it's on space stations orbiting planets, in habitats on moons or planets or some combination.  But it needs to happen.  The human race is going to suck the planet Earth dry if we don't find alternate ways to live in harmony with the environment.  And part of that is going to be learning to get resources off planet.  At least mineral ones to begin with.

It is very difficult to create life.  But like you said with billions of galaxies each having billions of stars life should exist elsewhere.
I really hope we find it soon so we can get rid of that religious idea that the universe was build for mankind.
Some scientist think we can even find some form of life in our solar system  (in the ice on the poles of Mars, in subsurface seas on moons of Jupiter, ...)

About colonization I feel different : we abuse one planet, so instead of cleaning that one we just move to the next one to do the same thing there.
We can get minerals by mining asteroids without the need to live there.    I do support the scientific reasons to go to other planets.
We still have about 4 billion years before our sun goes into its red giant period so there is some time left ...

The fact that Earth seems destined to support human life is logical.  If some parameters were different we wouldn't be here to even think about all this.


MetalDog

Quote from: Pete Dero on January 22, 2017, 06:06:10 AM
Quote from: MetalDog on January 22, 2017, 12:58:06 AM
Thanks, E.  I have no basis in my belief other than sheer numbers.  Billions of Galaxies?  There HAS to be life out there.  Whether it looks like us or not, I don't know.  Might be.  Might not.  But the Mars rover just found mud remains and where there's mud remains, there was water and...you know the rest.

I've stated this on site before, I truly believe in order to survive, man is going to have to colonize the solar system.  Whether it's on space stations orbiting planets, in habitats on moons or planets or some combination.  But it needs to happen.  The human race is going to suck the planet Earth dry if we don't find alternate ways to live in harmony with the environment.  And part of that is going to be learning to get resources off planet.  At least mineral ones to begin with.

It is very difficult to create life.  But like you said with billions of galaxies each having billions of stars life should exist elsewhere.
I really hope we find it soon so we can get rid of that religious idea that the universe was build for mankind.
Some scientist think we can even find some form of life in our solar system  (in the ice on the poles of Mars, in subsurface seas on moons of Jupiter, ...)

About colonization I feel different : we abuse one planet, so instead of cleaning that one we just move to the next one to do the same thing there.
We can get minerals by mining asteroids without the need to live there.    I do support the scientific reasons to go to other planets.
We still have about 4 billion years before our sun goes into its red giant period so there is some time left ...

The fact that Earth seems destined to support human life is logical.  If some parameters were different we wouldn't be here to even think about all this.


My view on that is if we can figure out how to live on Earth and not purposely kill ourselves through pollution, deforestation, greenhouse gas, etc., we can learn to live anywhere.  The problem right now is having the incentive to do it.  You would think the warnings we've been getting the last 30 years would be enough, but, no.  The human race is like a student that has an exam in the morning that determines whether they pass or fail and not studying for it until five minutes before it's supposed to start.
And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob